Not Here By Choice
by frustratedoptimist1
Summary: An Imperial crusade fleet sent to assist in the fight against the Reapers.
1. Chapter 1

I started writing this whilst operationally deployed for a very long time to keep my imagination ticking over. Hope you enjoy.

Chapter 1

Aeona V'Tari watched as the building in the distance, a long-standing and vaguely familiar landmark of the Cerisia skyline that she couldn't quite identify, finally gave way with a distant thunder and metallic shrieking as the Destroyer shouldered it out of the way.

The basso blaring of a Reaper warcry brought a cloud of pulverised concrete settling around her as she peered over the edge of the shattered wall, and even from this range she could see the water in a nearby crater stirring at the sound. Brushing off the worst of the dust, she flattened herself further into the shadow of the overhanging roof and tried to will herself invisible.

"If that thing comes much closer, we're fucked." called down her 2i/c, Sergeant T'Fara, from under the camouflage shroud draped across their observation post.

"There's not a lot we can do if it does, Jir. It might not notice us. I'd be more concerned about is the infantry sweeping ahead of it, and if they come on in force I don't know if we can delay them long enough to withdraw."

She paused. "Either way we'll know more when Inari and Senner get back."

Aeona looked behind her into the half-collapsed remains of the modest two-storey insurance firm that she had occupied over a week ago. Some minor catastrophe of war had blasted the front off the building, greatly improving concealment options and sightlines but ironically voiding the building insurance.

Her comms number was adjusting and readjusting a long-range communications set with the air of one for whom frustration has long since given way to resignation. "Anything yet?"

Leading Technician Antyon Cirrek, attached from the Turian Navy and the only member of his race present, dropped his hands and sighed. "Nothing on the satcomms, nothing on terrestrial frequencies. Can't get the fleet, can't get the Battalion, can't get the bloody Hegemony Cup results."

He was staring into the exposed circuitry like oracles of old had stared at entrails, and unfortunately with similar results.

"Between the infrastructure damage, the Reaper jamming and whatever's been causing these atmospherics for the past week, someone is going to have to find an ancient history museum and get a field telephone. With wires."

He snorted. "Asari bloody love history, so there should be one around here somewhere. Or an antique shop, maybe."

Aeona didn't rise to it. Cirrek's reflexive tendancy for making bad jokes was nothing new. As a Navy Rating who'd volunteered for Special Forces comms support without thinking overmuch about what he might be getting into, nervousness was understandable. He was capable of truly grim determination when things started getting really bad, but for now, she reasoned, there was no need to draw attention to it.

"So convenient antiquities aside, there's no chance of reinforcements any time soon."

"Oh, someone's getting them," Cirrek responded, an edge of exasperation creeping in, "just not on this side of the planet. I'm getting chatter about humans getting involved."

"Ah, we're saved" deadpanned T'Fara. "Have they given up on fighting each other yet?"

"Probably bored of it by now. Their attention span isn't amazing."

"Well, no doubt they'll sweep in at the last moment and pull us all out of the fire. Probably waiting for the most dramatically appropriate moment." Jir T'Fara had led an inspired defence of hubward Zakera ward during the Battle of the Citadel, saving much life and property, and which had been completely ignored when the Alliance Fifth Fleet earned humanity a seat on the Council in the space of an hour and a half. She'd lost friends in that action and found their deaths' being overshadowed by the galactic upstarts slightly hard to take.

T'Fara had always suspected that the Alliance had deliberately waited until the last possible moment to give maximum credibility to their status as saviours, thereby obtaining Council status. She knew it was illogical but found it harder to stop caring than to keep her grudge. Aeona on the other hand had fought alongside Alliance forces before, but kept her opinion to herself for the moment.

Cirrek was a lot younger than the matron, and rather more impressed despite his Turian disinclination towards individual glory.

"Their desire to always be the centre of attention aside, you must admit that they're good in a fight for all that. They gave us a pretty solid kick in the mandibles at Shangxi." He shrugged. "I mean, I'd still rather have an angry krogan between me and the ene-"

"Quiet, both of you." Aeona hunched over the remote feed from the surveillance drone hidden in the ruin above. "The scouts are returning."

Two figures darted across the debris-strewn expanse of the Matriarch Aenthyr Memorial Plaza, moving swiftly from one patch of concealment to the next and covering each other with the fluid motion of veteran soldiers. Sunrise wasn't far off, and the crazed shadows crisscrossing the plaza made for excellent cover.

Reaching the wreck of the ornamental garden, the taller of the two hand-signalled in the direction of the OP, permission to approach?

Aeona went to respond, and paused. Can't be too careful. She looked up at T'fara, who was gazing into the main sensor feed "Jir. Are they clear?"

The staff sergeant's clipped tones came back a few seconds later. "All the way to the far edge. No contacts."

Aeona nodded, and signalled over the parapet. Clear to come in.

Quiet footsteps pattered on the decorative flagstones outside, and the two scouts hurried up the pile of rubble outside and into the sunken room that was the OP.

Inari Yenesa and Olena Sokari had been off on a reconnaissance job for the last twenty hours, and every one of them showed. Yenesa's skin, normally a deep azure blue which had earned her the envy of many of her fellow asari, was grey with dirt and grime, her eyes sunken and bloodshot with fatigue. Sokari's hardsuit was badly dented along one shoulder, indicative of a fall, and her long rifle weighed heavy across her back.

"Glad you could join us. We were wondering if you'd jacked it in and gone home." Her grin faded, and her tone turned serious. "What's it like out there?"

"Grim" Yenesa grunted, sinking onto the broken desk that served as a seat. "Significant infantry presence, though no armour thank the Goddess, and, of course, the destroyer that just flattened the Cerisia Museum of Modern Art."

She brushed a hand over her head. It came back sticky with something indefinable, and she grimaced. "Got any food?"

Aeona handed her a ratpack. "So that's what that was. No great loss there at least."

She turned to the second of the two "Olena?"

The sniper had slid down the wall and was resting with her rifle, a monstrous Widow, resting across her legs. "We obtained substantial information on the disposition of Reaper forces. On top of what we already know, it'll certainly be of value to command if we can transmit it."

She glanced hopefully at Cirrek, who shook his head. "Not... quite yet."

"There's no evidence of any friendlies anywhere forward of here" she continued, her speech showing the quiet, lyrical quality peculiar to the Asari colony world of Alasysa, "and the funneling terrain places us square in the path of any Reaper offensive."

She held up a datapad. "The information is on here. Now, unless anyone here needs me, I'm off up top."

With that she unfolded herself and strolled over to the stairs, leaving the datapad by the tacmap on the way. It should have allowed real-time appreciation of the battlefield in for miles around, but it had refused to play along and the link indicators to the local tactical network were still a sullen and unhelpful red. They'd lugged it around for days now, hoping it might have a change of heart, but no such luck.

Aeona watched her walk away, already playing with the settings on her rifle. As a native of an agrarian colony world she tended to feel uncomfortable without a lot of sky overhead, though curiously she was fine with spacecraft. Besides, Olena was happiest when looking through a gunsight.

Putting thoughts of her sniper's psychology out of her mind, Aeona gestured towards where Yenesa was toying with a small metal object. "Brought us a present from your trip?"

The commando half shrugged, a thoughtful expression showing despite the fatigue. "Found this lying in a ruin six, seven K to the north."

She held up what looked like an ancient computer, the armoured screen studded with inexplicable sensors and mounted on the end of a bulky handgrip. "My working theory is that it's a prop for some kind of historical holo."

T'Fara took it and turned it over in her hands. "This looks like human script. Omnitool's getting nothing though. It's lighter than it looks, too. Ah!" She grinned as the screen lit up, until more of the indecipherable text began scrolling across it and scowled. "More gibberish."

"I'll hang onto it anyway." said Yenesa, reaching for the blocky device. The young commando was incessantly curious and would study anything that crossed her path, though her dislike of academic rigour made her disinclined to take such study much further. This kind of bizarre trinket would occupy what little free time she had for days.

Another Reaper call shattered the oasis of calm. The Destroyer was moving more purposefully, and it was definitely getting closer.

T'Fara, normally the model of quiet self-assurance, looked distinctly worried. Her eyes flicked to the survey equipment arrayed at the back of the room. "What's the plan now, boss?"

Aeona looked met the stares of her fellow infiltrators and considered her options. Though none would admit it, the last few weeks had driven them right to the edge. Thessia was being slowly overwhelmed, and with the other Council races fighting for their own existence the level of assistance they could expect was severely limited, not to mention the fact that the Matriarchs' earlier decision not to get involved in the war had definitely limited the goodwill they could expect. Some foreign assets were present - their orbital support liaison, Cirrek, for one - but for the most part the Asari military was alone, fighting a war the highly specialised force was ill-suited to.

Aeona's troop had been dispatched to reconnoitre a lightly contested area of Cerisia, a small satellite city of Thessia's main metropolitan hub. Theatre Command's intention was to establish an orbital supply and staging point here, but overt investigation would draw far too much attention from an enemy that was brutally overwhelming in a straight fight. Hence her mission to determine the area's suitability. They'd deployed here three weeks ago, established their observation post, set up the hated survey probes and the data collection kit, and scouted the area.

Results had been mixed - the city was a good choice, with few of the iconic Asari skyscrapers, solid, defensible terrain and good dispersal routes... but it was increasingly occupied by Reaper forces and disturbingly devoid of civilians. She'd read about what had happened to the human colonies out in the Terminus, and she'd seen the horrors designated as 'Banshees'. It was a deeply uncomfortable thought.

Aeona was young for a troop leader at a mere 162 standard, and the bitter conflict here had been a harsh test for someone highly skilled in the theory of armed conflict but lacking in experience.

Two of her 8-man troop had been killed in the first few days, Vija battered to death by a Brute that had broken straight through the wall before anyone could react, and Kieli by a tragically unlucky shot that penetrated her left eyepiece at the very second her barriers slipped. Both had been veterans, both had been experienced, and both had died without warning. Aeona had been quietly calculating her own odds and not liking the results.

She looked at the weary, tense faces around the room. The last few weeks had been ... difficult. But there were times to complain, and times to just shut up and soldier.

Clearing her throat, and hoping it disguised her hesitation, she called up a feed from the tacmap on her omnitool and a hologram of the local area snapped into life a few inches above her left wrist.

"Simply put, we can't stay here any longer." she began. "The probes have done their work, and we've collected all the data we can realistically get. Since we can't transmit, we're going to have to exfil on foot and make contact with a friendly force, probably the 546th Mechanised, who, if this information is still reliable, are engaged... here."

She pointed to where a blue icon held out against an advancing wall of red.

"After that, we use whatever transport they have to get back to Battalion and brief our findings."

Another thundering crash echoed in the distance, followed by another electronic howl.

"And sooner rather than later."

She turned to the scout. "Yenesa, take fifteen minutes and sort yourself out. The rest of you," she gestured at the survey kit, "start clearing this lot down. If it can't come with, destroy and hide it. We can't leave any evidence we were ever here, so sanitise the place thoroughly."

While Yenesa busied herself with weapon and armour maintenance, demolishing rations and idly trying to get the back off of her find, the others set about dismantling what had been their refuge for the last eight days.

Cirrek busied himself with the technical side of things, carefully stowing equipment and encrypting records while T'Fara dealt with a more... indelicate task. She stretched out a hand and a shimmering blue-white field surrounded a shattered slab of concrete floor. Drawing her hand up she pulled hundreds of kilos of former office out of the way as though it was a housebrick before sweeping their heavy, useless tacmap console under it with a lazy guesture. As blue waves surrounding the slab dissipated it fell with an expensive-sounding crunch, and she smirked in quiet satisfaction.

"Well, if it wasn't fucked before it's definitely fucked now. At least you won't have to ask me to fix it again."

Cirrek's voice faded behind Aeona as she climbed the stairs to the roof, leaving them to it. As she climbed she drew her rifle from the securing point on her hardsuit. She'd always favoured the Turian designs and a benefit of being a commando was freedom of choice in weapons, not that spares and supplies were often a problem in the age of universal thermal clips and omnitool-manufactured components. Running a practiced hand over the rifle, she donned her helmet and crept onto the rooftop, careful not to silhouette herself against the horizon.

Olena Sokari was curled in the corner of a rooftop feature, some architectural flourish that offered excellent protection from the elements and a clear line of sight. She'd draped herself in IR-supressing sheeting and camouflaged the barrel of her rifle. The oversized weapon that was almost as tall as she was and she treated it like a child, refusing to let anyone else maintain or adjust it. It all looked profoundly uncomfortable, but Aeona knew the diminutive sniper would be unlikely to even notice.

She dropped to the deck and crawled up.

"Olena. Anything to report?"

The sniper didn't even move her head, just continuing her slow sweep across the horizon. "Definite increase in activity, Captain. I'm seeing Husks, Cannibals, Brutes, the whole lot. Makes sense for us to get out tonight."

"The others are clearing the OP now. Actually, Jir just squashed everyone's favourite tacmap under a few hundred kilos of floor. It's brightened the day considerably."

Olena smiled slightly, but didn't respond right away. Aeona kicked herself. Olena's biotics were well above average - by Human standards. Compared to other Asari, she was seen as almost handicapped. Physically unimposing and biotically unimpressive, she'd thrown herself so completely into her role as a marksman as a way to prove herself. Fortunately, she'd excelled at it.

"Eh. I'm happy up here. Any news? Reapers asking for peace yet?"

"The Humans are here, apparently. And not Cerberus, for once. Jir is delighted to be saved by them again."

"I bet she is. Has anyone told her they've got a second SPECTRE yet?"

"No, and don't. It's ten kilometres through the city to our extraction point and I don't want her complaining to attract the enemy.

"Anyway, we're moving off in an hour or two." she pointed down the street. "I'll need you to cover during the exfil, so let me know when you've decided where you want to be. If all -"

A long shriek echoed around the buildings above.

"Shht. Hear that?" Olena tore her eyes away from the sights for the first time since they'd started talking and looked up, eyes wide. "That sounded like a fucking-"

"Harvester" Aeona finished, voice grim, as the abomination swept overhead.

"It's coming in behind us. We're being cut off."

Well, what do you think? Worth continuing?


	2. Chapter 2

The harvester had only been the start.

Aeona flung a warp at the nearest Legionnaire. She had already shot down two charging husks by the time it had collapsed, dissolving in grinding squawks of pain and confusion, but there were more coming. Always more coming, and now a brute amongst them.

The troop had been holding on for what seemed like days, though in truth it was only perhaps an hour or two. Standard paranoia had served them well and mining the rear approaches to their OP had bought precious time to organise a defence.

Aeona glanced at the compass readout inside her helmet. "Olena! Target the Brute, one-three-seven, two hundred.!"

The distinctive Bang! of a Widow echoed from the roof and the Brute spun to the left. It bellowed, half an arm shot away, before a second round slammed into its chest cavity, dropping it to a knee. A final roar was cut short by a third round that split the beast's head like a melon.

A knot of husks rounded the edge of a wrecked airtruck and were swiftly mown down as a rachni-form Reaper opened fire. Aeona flung herself to one side as the targeting lasers snapped onto her position, and seconds later a trio of heavy bolts smashed a section of wall to fragments.

An answering missile from T'Fara, on the floor above, blasted it apart and ruptured the sac of its companion. Viscous semi-organic fluid and skittering rachni larvae spilled out, and the horrific construct lurched unsteadily to one side, screeching. A burst from Cirrek finished it off.

"They're coming from all sides!" he shouted. "And there's more on the way!"

He was right. Another wave of husks and cannibals, a few legionnaires amongst them, was advancing through the ornamental garden at the front of the building. Sunrise was moments away, but she had more than enough light to see that they were so very many of them...

Aeona swore. "Look for the weak point and disrupt the leaders! If we can force a gap, we'll try and break through!"

She couldn't see it happening easily. Just as they had feared, they'd found themselves caught in the path of a general advance and the Reapers, finding a node of resistance, were converging on it from all around. And while in a solid defensive position and well supplied with ammunition, well... there were only five of them. It could only be a matter of time.

"Banshee! Fucking banshee, one-eight-zero!"

Cirrek's cry was almost drowned out by the piercing shriek of the abomination that had once been an Asari. The remainder of the team focused their fire immediately, both for the threat it posed and for the hateful desecration of their own people that it represented.

It shrieked again and, blurred, using a biotic charge to close the gap. Suddenly it was right there, almost blocking the hole in the wall and swinging at Aeona. Before she could react, a massive clawed hand caught her and flung her through the air to slam into a wall. She saw stars and tasted blood, suddenly unable to coordinate her thoughts. Her helmet had been ripped off and she choked on the dust and ash swirling in the air.

She staggered upright, fell, and turned to see another missile streak from the stairway to impact in the banshee's midsection. The blast collapsed its biotic fields, and Aeona saw more sparks as debris scattered off her kinetic barriers.

The monster swayed slightly and steadied itself. It turned and shrieked at T'Fara, who had dropped her now-useless missile launcher, spreading its arms and jaws in a display of pure threat. A blue storm erupted around it as it prepared to charge.

Aeona mustered enough concentration to fling a push at the creature. It spun again, and her breath caught in her throat.

The banshee lunged.

A heavy round took its head off. Sokari stood in the stair beside T'Fara, a heavy Carnifex pistol braced in both hands. "Boss, get up! Antyon, give her a hand!"

Aeona felt the Turian grab her under one arm - no gentle helping hand, this - and haul her towards where T'Fara, her face straining with effort, was maintaining a biotic barrier across the hallway. The Reaper footsoldiers had reached the building and the weight of fire she was holding off was frightening. Yenesa had got there first and was blazing away at the horde, though it seemed she might as well have turned her gun on the sea.

"I'm all right, I'm all right. Get upstairs!"

"No way out from there, Captain!"

"We won't last another minute down here. Get up the fucking stairs!"

They ran, with T'Fara bringing down part of the wall behind them to stall pursuit. The five commandos entered the top floor, and stopped dead as a feeling of numb horror, of overwhelming dread seized every one of them.

The Destroyer had arrived.

The Destroyer had arrived, and it was looking at them.

The Destroyer had arrived, and it was looking at them, and they were as good as dead.

Aeona's mouth went dry. She watched as the great red eye turned towards them, shining brighter and brighter. She heard the great blare of machine noise. She opened her mouth to scream-

-and her jaw dropped as a bolt of something, something brighter than a sun that turned the world into a mass of jagged shadow, slammed into the Destroyer with enough force to shake the foundations of their building.

The great machine staggered to one side with the impact, wailing, and Aeona could almost feel a wave of rage and disbelief that it could be hurt. It turned, its legs smashing through concrete like paper, as another titanic construct rounded a skyscraper half a kilometre away. The newcomer blared its own challenge, looking for all the world like an animal seeking a fight.

She stared, uncomprehendingly. This new monster was... humanoid. Next to that towering design of an ancient and malign intelligence, this one looked like something that might be built by a council race, albeit if they were insane. It was stooped, low-browed and powerful-looking, covered in script and iconography, and it had banners, actual cloth banners flying from the enormous guns it had in place of arms.

It howled again, and a beam of energy ten feet across streaked from one arm. The Destroyer twisted, impossibly, and it missed by scant meters.

Spinning back around with awful grace, the great eye spat forth a a torrent of red and Aeona's breath caught in her throat.

The newcomer should have been destroyed. This was a weapon capable of bringing down spacecraft, but the stream of light struck... her first thought was that it was a kinetic barrier of awesome strength, but the air was shimmering in an orange bubble around the giant and barriers just didn't do that-

A round smacked into the ceiling near her head, dragging her back to reality. The troop scattered for cover as the enemy advanced across the plaza outside. Aeona had just drawn a bead on a legionnare when she heard T'Fara cry out.

"What the... look at th.. fuck!"

The Destroyer took a step back as giant strode through the fireball without a scratch on it. Without hesitation it swept through a building, raised its shorter left arm and executed the Destroyer. There was no other word for it. A blast of incandescent light crashed into the front armour of the Reaper horror, ripping straight through it. As the machine fell, critically damaged, the giant actually placed one huge foot on it before lowering its other arm and firing, the motion casual, deliberate and brutal.

The Destroyer exploded from the eye upwards.

The blast was immense. The overpressure flattened everything not in cover within half a kilometre, scattering reaper troops like chaff. Flying debris scythed through the air, and a lump of destroyer the size of an Elcor embedded itself in the ground outside.

Aeona slowly raised her head and looked around. Everyone appeared intact, if covered in dust and half-terrified. She met their disbelieving stares, and looked up at the giant. It stood over the wreckage, intact, and the silence was broken only by the noise of collapsing rubble.

The titanic warmachine howled again, before turning and moving off to the South.

There was a pause, and then everyone started talking at once.

"Did you see that?"

"What the fuck was that thing?"

"It just blew it in half!"

"Where the hell did it come from? Is it even on our side?"

"Don't know, doesn't matter!" snapped Aeona. "They're regrouping. Stand to!"

The commandos took up what defensible positions they could in the wreck of the upper floor, which now had a definite slope to it. The reaper forces had indeed rallied, and there were still a frightening number of them.

The dramatic end of the Destroyer was swiftly put to one side as the battle picked up where it had left off.

Fire was coming in heavy and constant. Yenesa cried in pain and anger as shrapnel overcame her barrier and sliced into her hip. T'Fara ran to help and was hit square on by a shot from a rachni. Her barriers blew out and she flung herself flat as the other rounds zipped overhead. Aeona had put a burst into another husk when Cirrek cried out.

"Captain! I've got chatter on the short range comms! Killing that thing must have disrupted their local jamming!"

Relief washed over her. Maybe they'd get out after all. "Give them our position, call for anything we can get!"

The Turian dropped behind cover and routed his comm through his omnitool. "Any callsign this net, any callsign this net, this is Alpha Seven Echo, Alpha Seven Echo, requesting immediate support at grid 06744985, I say again, grid 06744985. We are being overrun, immediate support required..."

He looked up. "No acknowledgement."

"So keep bloody trying, for the goddess' sake!"

A strangely-accented voice, heavily distorted by static, broke across the sound of gunfire.

"Alpha Seven Echo, this is Vulture 6-6. We have you visual. Heads down."

The commandos looked at each other for a split second, then threw themselves behind the heaviest cover they could. Aeona raised her head a fraction to see two aircraft strafing the reaper troops. They weren't Mantis gunships, and they weren't displaying any markings she recognised. They were moving much too fast.

Rockets, cannonfire and lasers swept through the enemy, rending them apart and gouging two furrows in the concrete of the plaza.

"Those are lasers." stammered K'Thoni, staring over her sights. "Those gunships have laser weapons."

"Forget that, look at the markings! Same as that destroyer-killer!" Yenesa pulled out her bizarre device. "Same as this thing!"

She was right, Aeona realised. The same mark seemed to be emblazoned across every strange thing they'd encountered in the last few hours. It looked like some kind of mutant bird of prey, like an eagle with two heads.

The two aircraft shot overhead with a roar of turbines. "This is Vulture 6-6, weapons dry. Ground forces are on route to you now, ETA imminent.

"Good luck, Seven Echo. The Emperor protects."

They glanced at each other from their firing positions. What did that mean?

"Here they come! North side!" cried Sokari. "What the..."

A tank, with honest-to-goddess tracks, had rolled out from a sidestreet. It was blocky, ugly, crude-looking - in fact it looked like a relic from a thousand-year-old war, but any feelings of derision vanished abruptly when it opened fire.

A huge-bore turret-mounted cannon boomed, annihilating a group of rachni without trace. Sponson and hull mounted weapons opened up, a rapid cracking that scythed across the reaper troops Aeona rubbed her eyes. When they were hit, they were exploding, ripped to pieces from the inside out. The tank ground forward before settling into a crater next to a piece of Destroyer.

Soldiers in ochre-coloured greatcoats and black body armour rushed over the rubble behind it, firing as they came. They had no hardsuits! Such armour had been commonplace throughout the galaxy since space travel had gone from astounding to merely ordinary, but these men had a bizarrely anachronistic mix of armour and helmets, and were carrying simplistic looking, boxy rifles.

They mustn't have had kinetics of their own, either. It showed in their fighting style, working from cover to cover with none of the exposure that would normally be expected of someone with a personal shield. She watched as soldier was hit dead centre by a round from a legionnaire. He dropped like a stone, but from the way he was kicking and shouting he was still evidently alive as he was dragged into cover, so his armour must have offered the protection of a hardsuit at least.

Their strange rifles had been spitting out pencil-thin beams of light, and it was only then she realised that they were killing the enemy straight through their kinetic barriers. These weren't targeting lasers, they were actual, real laser rifles. Lasers! No wonder they didn't bother with kinetics and hardsuits. She was watching the standards of millennia shift without warning.

The reapers turned to this new threat, and charged, attempting to mob then with superior numbers. The soldiers countered with a flamethrower - an unusually barbaric weapon - and a flash of movement betrayed the strangest thing yet.

A tall figure dressed in a long black coat was gesturing with his sidearm, waving his men forward past the casualty. He was striding from position to position with casual disregard for the gunfire whipping past him, pausing only to shoot any enemy that came particularly near. As a group of husks and cannibals rushed towards him, he reached inside his coat.

"He's got a fucking sword. A chainsaw sword. You must be fucking joking." breathed T'Fara, as the figure in black drew a snarling, chain-toothed sabre and slashed through the legs of a cannibal in one swift movement, chopping through its torso on the backswing before flicking the tip of the blade into the creature behind it. He was bellowing something, but the words were lost in the tumult. Hacking a husk in two from neck to groin, the man spun left and pressed his pistol into the forehead of a legionnaire. The creature's head exploded, and Aeona could imagine Olena burning with envy at the sight.

And as fast as it had begun, it was over. The ground was littered with the reaper dead, and the new soldiers could be seen walking to and fro, checking for signs of life and extinguishing any they found.

The commandos slowly stood up, wary, and formed a rough semicircle by the ramp of rubble leading down to the plaza.

"Boss..." Yenesa started.

Aeona looked behind her.

"They're humans."

"I know, Yen."

There was a pause.

"Who are these people?"

Aeona paused, spotting a lone figure wearing a recognisable uniform, standing amongst the strangers. The man, who had 'liaison' written all over him, was pointing towards their side of the plaza and gesturing expressively. Next to him was a man in black and ochre, more heavily armoured than the others and who had 'special forces' written all over _him_, was looking on impassively.

She'd never been so relieved to see someone from the Alliance. Maybe they could explain what was going on. Also, frankly, she didn't feel at all sanguine about approaching these people alone.

She took a deep breath and blew it out her nose. Standing up, she set her shoulders, adjusted her collar, and as an afterthought returned her weapon to her back rig. She eyed the Marine, who had started picking his way up the collapsed building towards them.

"We may be about to find out."


	3. Chapter 3

"Captain V'Tari, I presume?"

The Alliance officer addressing her was a clean cut, vigorous-looking man, walking up the rubble to meet them with his rifle carried in the crook of his arm as if he was off on a game shoot. His standard blue hardsuit had a golden eagle emblem embossed under his Alliance markings and his rank insignia identified him as a Senior Lieutenant. He smiled cheerfully, a man thoroughly enjoying his job.

The contrast between him and the battered, bloodied and deeply confused reconnaissance team could hardly have been more pronounced.

"We thought you might be in the area. No reports of your location for over a week and Command thought you might have had it, but then we saw the fighting. Looks like you gave them a hard time, eh? Nice of you to leave some of the bastards for us. The old Titan over there nearly flattened the whole area until we realised you were still alive. Senior Lieutenant Davies, at your service."

He was still grinning maniacally. Aeona blinked while she mentally replayed everything he'd said. The translator should have adjusted for the accent but this particular lilt at this speed of delivery was evidently a little too much for it.

"I... ah, thank you for the assistance, Lieutenant. We were, uh... that is, the..."

She gestured at the scene around them, then her arms fell to her sides, exasperated.

"What the fuck is going on?"

His grin faltered, and realisation dawned.

"Oh, of course, you... no contact, you wouldn't've... well." He cleared his throat. "There have been a few developments recently."

Yenesa raised a hand. "Corporal Inari Yenesa, deeply confused. Would these developments have anything to do with the giant warmachine that just blew a reaper destroyer in half? Please, I'm all ears. Metaphorically."

Davies was dithering. "There's no way to explain this without sounding like I've gone proper mad. The whole situation is a bit mad as it is, like. Everyone's barely over the shock."

"Today I saw a man with a chainsaw sword chop a husk in half." volunteered Cirrek. "Consider us sufficiently primed."

"Okaaay, well." he cleared his throat again, seemingly deciding to just plunge in. "So... well... well about a hundred thousand very advanced and very strange humans appeared out of nowhere last month and started fighting the reapers. They're nothing to do with us, and as best we can tell they're from some other end of the space-time continuum. Or something. We have no idea how they got here and they aren't saying, but they're hitting the reapers hard so we're not pressing the issue."

Davies paused for questions but he team was still just staring at him, so he took a deep breath and carried on.

"They call themselves the Imperium of Man. Yes, I know that sounds bad. They are xenophobic religious zealots who have access to technology that makes our best kit look like sharp sticks, but they appear to be on our side. They've occupied part of a Citadel ward as a headquarters and they've got a warship floating in space next to it that's the size of a reaper but looks like a fucking cathedral."

Davies paused for breath.

"Still following? Right. The Imperials have been conducting hit-and-run actions all over the galaxy, working alongside council forces because their FTL, see, whatever is based on it isn't working too well, and last week they sort of decided that because there was no possibility of retaking Earth yet they were going to come to Thessia instead. They seem to have decided that this was the most direct route to helping Earth and they've thrown themselves into it, engaging in orbit and landing troops where the fighting's thickest. They needed local knowledge and asked for volunteers, so the Alliance put a bunch of us forward as liaison officers and now I've been attached to this battalion for a fortnight now so far."

He finally stopped talking and offered a hopeful smile. "Are there any questions?"

There was a stunned silence, which went on for a while. It took a few minutes for Aeona to stop her mind spinning enough to think of what to ask first.

"Humans? Extragalactic? Xenophobic? High tech? Why are they here, right now? How many of them are there? Are they hostile to nonhumans? Who are they?"

"Definitely humans, definitely not from around here, definitely very advanced though with certain oddities that I'll tell you about later. There's barely thirty thousand of them that we know of, and, unfortunately, they are most definitely not used to aliens."

Yenesa raised her hand again. "And the destroyer-killer?"

"They call it a Titan, or sometimes a god-machine. Yes, really. They won't let anyone see inside so far." He turned to Cirrek. "The sword, well, they do a lot of that sort of thing. They get a lot of close melee fighting back home, see. Wait until you see a powerfist for the first time."

Aeona shook her head. "I'm going to trust you and just hope that this will all start to make sense after a few days. In the meantime we need transport back to Command. Do you have a shuttle available?"

"There's one leaving in half an hour." Davies smiled sympathetically. "Don't think too much about it. It's easier if you just accept the situation."

"Right. Well. Better go and meet them then. You can explain on the way over."

They set off across the battlefield, Davies pointing things out along the way.

"The tank, they call it a Leman Russ. Named after some big legendary hero. It looks like shit but a round from a Mako just bounces off nine times out of ten, and you won't get ten shots in before that big cannon finds you. The smaller one is a Chimera troop transport. It's got a gatling laser in the turret, believe it or not."

"They don't have hover tech, I take it? asked Jir T'Fara. "That seems strange. It's a basic application of eezo."

"They haven't got it. Eezo, that is, they do have hover tech here and there. Apparently they were amazed by eezo when they saw it, all excited about weapon potential. It may be our best bargaining tool with them."

The squad exchanged looks.

"The gunships you saw earlier, they call them Vultures. I don't know how they did it but they seem to have built the perfect turbofan engine – you shouldn't be able to get that much power out of one, or so the engineers tell us, but the evidence flew overhead not half an hour ago so… well, there's a lot of this sort of thing going on right now."

He paused.

"It's making a lot of scientists very upset."

The squad was close enough now to see the Imperials up close. They had the look of veterans – that quiet, efficient, well-practiced quality that surrounded men who knew what they were about. Looking closer, Aeona could see a lot of scarred, prematurely aged faces; this was not a peacetime army, clearly.

"Okay, see the man in black armour? With the hellgun, the big rifle with the power cable? That's Major Kalman. He's who we need to talk to."

Aeona squinted at him. "Different uniform. SF?"

"The Major is here on behalf of an external authority, an oversight organisation." Davies explained. "Something akin to the Spectres, apparently, but they've not been forthcoming about this one. He works for someone important in the Crusade hierarchy."

"Crusade?" asked Aeona warily.

"Yeeeaahh." He paused, unsure of how to proceed. "They're well religious, the Imperials. They have a huge system of worship surrounding what they call the God-Emperor of Mankind, and it governs every aspect of their lives. It's all-encompassing, and they take it very, very seriously. They believe he is a living god, an all-powerful psychic guiding the whole of humanity and protecting them, us, from evil powers even though he appears to have been on life support for some ten thousand years." He saw her expression. "For fuck's sake don't laugh or you could get us all shot."

"Psychics. Living gods." she snorted and glanced across at him. "Little bit superstitious are they?"

Davies laughed nervously and didn't meet her eye.

"I... don't know anymore. We've seen, that is those of us who've worked with them closely, we've seen things we can't explain. I mean, there's biotics and that's all fine, but this is different. Mindreading. Shooting lightning from outstretched hands. Predicting the future and getting it _right_. The psykers, as they call them... weird shit happens around them. Whispering voices, a frost on a hot day, your food suddenly tasting of blood, flashes of... of other places in the corner of your eye."

He looked back at her. His natural joviality was suddenly gone, and the look in his eyes shook her. Sharing a glance with the rest of the squad she saw their disquiet as well. They continued in silence for a while.

"So what should we expect?" asked Olena Sokari as they approached the far side of the plaza. "Any diplomatic advice for talking to the crazy humans?"

Davies appeared to snap out of whatever uncomfortable memory their last conversation had dredged up. "I'll warn you now that they're not the friendliest bunch sometimes, particularly towards aliens. Jerec - Major Kalman - is one of the friendlier, but that they are friendly at all - even if not exactly pleasant - is a huge step in the right direction. You will probably only the fourth or fifth nonhuman he's ever spoken to, and most of those will have been since arriving here. The Imperuim's been constantly at war with hostile aliens back home for thousands of years, apparently. No species we've ever heard of, though, so hopefully you're in the clear."

"Ignorance and hatred and firepower and magic and a God versus a Devil, check." said Yenesa breezily. "Anything else?"

"There are a few more we've figured out, yeah. Never question their religion, for one. I know I've said it before but it warrants repeating. Don't talk about their bizarre approach to technology either."

"Which is?"

"They don't think it will work unless you pray to it and ask it nicely." Davies saw their looks, shrugged, and continued. "They got a little tweaked about biotics until their leaders were satisfied it was nothing whatsoever like their psychic stuff. They quite like it now, mostly because they think it's much safer than whatever their equivalent runs on. Don't insult humanity, even jokingly, until they get really used to you, and remember that while they might look archaic, they shouldn't be underestimated."

"I think we got that when the old god-machine shot that destroyer's head off." said Cirrek drily.

"Oh, yeah, one more thing." He stopped and turned to look them in the eyes. "Stay well away from the big blue ones in the really heavy-looking armour if at all possible. Don't ask me to explain, as we don't know a lot about them, but you'll definitely know them when you see them. Suffice to say that they're a concentrated version of everything scary about the Imperium and, well, they have a very single-minded approach to anything they deem a threat. Apparently there's only about fifty of them so odds are low that you'll ever cross paths, but, y'know, just in case."

His expression darkened.

"Still, for all that, do stand up for yourselves and your people, and while we're all being polite and accommodating and such, remind them of the reality of life in this galaxy. Do not give in to or encourage their xenophobia. They've been commanded by their Emperor to help us, which seems to have included a requirement to live and let live. Most, if not all of them will literally die before disobeying that order but it doesn't mean that they all like it."

"This is sounding better every second." muttered Yenesa.

"They're not all bad. Most of them are just normal people - once you get to know them, and vice versa, they're a great crowd. Usual crowd of misfits you find in every army. The ones I'm with, anyway, the Steel Legion. I can't speak for the other regiments."

They were approaching the tanks now, close enough for Aeona to get a good look at the man they'd come to see. The Major was standing apart from the organised chaos, watching her team's approach with guarded curiosity. He appeared to be man of average height and solid, athletic build, his eyes a dark green in a pale face which combined surprisingly delicate features with a nose that had been broken at least twice. His rifle hung on a sling across a scarred chestplate embossed with a small I in bright, arterial red over his rank markings.

Aeona noticed he had a basic omnitool strapped to his left vambrace. Hopefully that meant he was one of the more open-minded of his people. He stepped forward in response to Davies' salute and spread his hands across his chest, thumbs hooked in what was obviously a gesture laden with meaning.

Aeona fixed her most professional smile and prepared to make first contact with humans. Again.

Right, that's all I have ready to go at the moment. I was writing this while I was away, purely to keep my imagination ticking over, and thought I'd stick it up here to see what people thought. I've got the framework of another two chapters on the go and a good idea of where I want to end up...

Some of you might have guessed thus far that I'm staying away from the usual crossover tropes. No interaction with named characters from the respective franchises - I'm lifelong military and I've always liked the idea of focusing on the regular people instead of the player-character demigods; when you've got millions of souls in a galactic war, why go for the same faces every time? No vaguely juvenile kerbstomps, as I'm more interested in the culture shock and the mechanics of two very different organisations working alongside one another. Don't expect to see it raining Astartes any time soon. There's only a million of them in their own galaxy, how many do you think they can spare for someone else's? The powers in 40k are on such a different scale that the only way to maintain any sense of proportion is to keep the numbers down.

Gah, sorry for the long list. Hope you got some enjoyment out of this so far. There will be more.


	4. Chapter 4

Major Jerek Kalman, veteran of the Inquisition Stormtrooper Corps and formerly of the 112th Hydraphur Mechanised Infantry, stared at the smiling xeno. It – she, he supposed – was looking him right in the eye, and if her body language was anything like human she was at least as uncertain of how to proceed as he was.

He looked closer. It was almost heretical how human these Asari looked; this was the first time he had seen one up close, and if not for the blue skin, the tiny scales and the tentacles? – Throne, no – on her head she might have easily passed for human. With a helmet on it might be unsettlingly difficult to tell the difference. Kalman looked around at the rest of them. Three more Asari of presumably varying ages and a… Turian, he remembered, dragging the word from the memory of the initial theatre entry brief.

They must have been the forward observation unit shouting for air support earlier, and Davies seemed to have been giving them the basics of what must have been a fairly confusing situation. So they had survived, then. He supposed that was probably a good thing, though he wondered what the Navy close air support lads would say when they were informed they had risked their lives to save xenos.

He decided it was time to break the awkward silence.

"Lieutenant." he said, walking over. "I take it that these xe- uh, people, are the missing scout section?"

The man came to attention and saluted, and Kalman made the sign of the aquila in return.

Davies cleared his throat hesitantly. "Yes sir, as mentioned in the brief this morning." he said. The marine officer had been somewhat in awe of the Imperial forces since arriving for liaison work - awe, tempered with a healthy amount of fear, which Kalman felt was only appropriate.

"I've given them the necessary lingual updates sir, so you should be able to talk without difficulty." he said, gesturing to the leading Asari who stepped forward, extending a hand.

"Captain Aeona V'Tari, 56th Commando Reconnaissance. I offer my sincere gratitude and that of my team for your intervention. Your arrival undoubtedly saved our lives."

Kalman made a closer appraisal of the xeno female. She was definitely young, or at least appeared so, and had clearly been through some significant fighting recently. Pale blue skin, green eyes, slightly shorter than him and quite a lot shorter than the marine next to her, though she was at least managing to hide her nerves better than he was. Clearly competent, honest, and apparently friendly to humanity, but, well…

Still not up for shaking hands with any xenos. He decided to settle for a nod of acknowledgement.

"Major Jerek Kalman, Inquisitorial Oversight. You were fortunate we made a detour away from the main assault - we detected a weak Imperial signal and were investigating when we received your call for assistance. Your own forces pulled out some time ago – I imagine they believed you to be dead – and we started the effort to retake this sector this morning now that the fleet is committed in orbit."

"Bastards." muttered the older-looking xeno. "They might have checked first"

V'Tari ignored her. She had quietly dropped her ignored hand without drawing attention to the fact.

"Thank you for the help, Major. It's an honour and a pleasure to fight alongside humans again, even if your own… organization is unfamiliar to us."

The asari stared past him for a second before meeting his eye again. "I want to thank you, on behalf of my squad and my people, for coming to our aid in our darkest hour. I have to ask: you say your fleet is committed? Do you intend to save Thessia?"

Kalman watched a hopeful expression dawn across the battered faces of the xeno soldiers, as well they might. He'd been on this rock for a week and it certainly didn't look as if the Asari were getting out of this on their own. According to his notes they had historically liked to play the 'elder civilization' card a lot, but even with Terra under siege humanity still appeared to retain more fighting spirit than all of this blue-skinned crowd put together.

He kept his face impassive. "The Imperium is here to deliver Holy Terra – Earth. This expedition has been a useful opportunity to get acquainted with the foe, and though so far-" he prodded a dead cannibal with his armoured boot, "-we have not assessed any extremis threats, I suspect it's going to come down to numbers in the end. There are few of us available and a great many of the foe.

"To achieve our objective we need the cooperation of all remaining military assets in this galaxy. We will preserve this world to the extent necessary to bring your fleets into play."

A flash of indignation passed over the face of the older Asari and she opened her mouth, but before she could speak the xeno with the enormous rifle stepped forward.

"Fuck it. Sir, I don't care what your reasons are, but help us kill every Reaper on Thessia and we'll be right behind you when you push for Earth."

The old xeno glared daggers at the sniper, but V'Tari spun round to cut her off. "Get a grip. Sokari's right. We can't win this alone, and I think I'm capable of swallowing my pride for the sake of preserving thousands of years of civilized culture. We have a common enemy here."

She turned back to Kalman. "Major, please continue. You mentioned a fleet?"

The Turian spoke up as well. " And what was the giant machine that tore that destroyer in half?"

Kalman smiled almost imperceptibly. It looked like some of them were trying very hard to restrain themselves from hurling a barrage of questions at him, and to his surprise he found himself sympathising. It must be a bizarre experience to suddenly find both your world and your basic assumptions about the universe changed in the course of an hour.

He supposed he could relate. It was less than six months since it had happened to him, after all.

Maybe it was the fact that these asari looked and sounded and acted so very much like real people, and it was taking him off guard. He'd seen an Eldar once – not a reiver, a true one – and there was none if that race's proportional and inherent wrongness. The rest of T'Vari's squad displayed human-like expressions of interest, whispering quietly to each other every time they spotted something new. Except for the skin colour and the... hair... tentacles they all looked so very ordinary, not unlike the awkward Alliance officer who had been standing off to one side with an uneasy expression for the past five minutes. He wasn't the only one feeling awkward. Kalman had no idea how to talk to these aliens, and even though he was acting in accordance with his orders he felt slightly heretical just standing here.

Well, most of the xenos looked humanlike. The Turian at the back still looked very much the xeno beast, though its eyes glittered with obvious intelligence. Kalman recalled from his background reading that they'd warred against humanity when it had first reached for the stars in this galaxy, yet they had been the first xeno race to fight alongside mankind when Terra had fallen. Perhaps not entirely beyond redemption, even if they did look like a stretched kroot, but he nonetheless made a note to shoot the creature if it ever appeared to pose a threat.

The turian caught his eye and nodded in acknowledgement. Kalman blinked, cleared his throat, and continued.

"That was the Warlord-class titan Omnissiah Victrix, part of the Legio Ferrus, and currently spearheading this part of the offensive." He allowed himself a small grin. "Rumour is that the Princeps has been thrilled to finally find an enemy to fight that's on the same scale as himself."

He started off towards the row of vehicles at the base of the rise. The Asari followed, their heads turning to follow a gunship as it landed in a clear area with a scream of turbines, more troops piling out with boxes of equipment.

"The flotilla is dispersed. The cruiser Divine Retribution is holding position near your Citadel, accompanied by the destroyer Basilisk, while our troopship and dropships have travelled here with our other two Dauntless-class destroyers to break the back of the enemy offensive over your world. In this we are honoured to accompany the frigate Polux, of the Adaptus Astartes Crimson Fists."

He heard Davies whisper something about 'blue giants' but ignored it when the last of the Asari finally spoke. "Only three warships?"

Kalman looked pointedly at the burning wreck of the reaper destroyer. "Yes, only three. Our means of travel placed constraints on ship numbers, but even with only three units the Navy and Astartes were more than capable of punching a hole right down to the surface and keeping it open while we do our job planetside."

The xeno coughed gently. "Your point is taken, sir. If I may ask, where are the 'Astartes' now?"

"The Space Marines keep their own counsel, though I suppose the usual rules apply. If you want to find them, look where the fighting is at its most terrifying and find the largest heap of enemy corpses you can. They'll be on top of it." Kalman grinned openly this time as he saw the xenos exchange glances. "Pray you never meet them on the battlefield. It's a sure indication that you're unlikely to survive the day."

V'Tari spoke again. "And these men?"

"The Steel Legions of Armageddon. Bane of the ork, fearless in defence and the best urban warfare specialists you'll find in the Segmentum Solar. I fought alongside them at Helsreach, and there's more than a few veterans of that battle tearing through your cities today, though Emperor knows there were few enough survivors.

Kalman halted abruptly as he reached one of the Chimeras. "Captain, I have pressing business to attend to, and I recommend you contact your regiment and request instructions. I have a Valkyrie departing for the Joint Forces Command later today. They can transport you there for onward passage to your individual unit." He nodded, politely. "The Emperor protects, Captain V'Tari."

He was interrupted as he turned to leave. "One more question, Major." It was the older one, he saw.

Kalman pausing, gesturing for her to continue.

"Your references to your Emperor. I thought you humans didn't have organised religion any longer?"

Kalman could see Davies' face freeze in an expression of sudden panic behind her, but the xeno continued, her tone flippant.

"As far as I understand you revere him as a living god, but I haven't ever seen a reference to any of this in anything I've read about humanity before. Is this a genuine belief, or just a state religion, or what? Does it have anything to do with all the eagle iconography everywhere?"

Kalman paused for a long while, trying to control his breathing, before finally answering. How dare this alien speak like that? He had allowed himself to forget the essential wrongness of this creature in its apparent familiarity, and his finger twitched reflexively towards his hellgun trigger.

"The God-Emperor of Mankind is the absolute and immutable ruler of the Holy Imperium of Man, the master of mankind and the protector of humanity, the shield against the predations of the enemy. Countless armies and trillions of people live and die in His name every day.

"I have watched men perish, cities fall, nations crumble and planets burn, both the innocent and guilty alike. I have seen with my own eyes the unimaginable heresy of the Archenemy, the brutal horror of the innumerable xenos, the perfidy of the mutant and of the traitor. Over thirty years in the Guard and ten in the service of the Inquisition I have witnessed the true terrors of the universe, nightmares amongst which your reapers are near the least.

"It is by the will of the Emperor that mankind prevails. It is His indomitable soul blazing out the last remaining light for humanity, and it is only by His unfailing devotion and wisdom that we continue to hold out against the encroaching darkness. Is this a genuine belief, you ask? A mere religion?"

He spat the words, mounting fury in his eyes.

"It is life itself. The Ministorum teaches us that it is better to die for the Emperor than live for yourself, and I have witnessed time and time again that when called upon to act there is not a man or woman in the Imperium who would not uphold this commandment to the last.

"We have stood our ground and spat our contempt at the worst the galaxy can throw at us for ten thousand fucking years. We will do so until the end of time itself, or we will drag the rest of creation screaming to its death with us in the final battle.

He met their eyes, one by one. They were wide open, and V'Tari's jaw was hanging slightly. Davies had gone stark white. He'd had his own eyes fixed on the Major's right index finger.

"The Emperor, in his infinite knowledge and justice, has deemed it necessary to preserve the existence of your species. It is by His will that we are in this place, and it is by His command alone that we come to your world not as liberators - and not as conquerors.

Kalman turned and strode away.

"Be on your way."

….

Twenty minutes later and Jerek Kalman was beginning to calm down. The arrogance and presumption of the xeno had angered him, but his ingrained mental regimes of self-control were reasserting themselves.

He watched their gunship depart and put her out of his mind.

This galaxy may have been beyond the Emperor's light, but even if he was prohibited from changing much he could at least banish the impious ignorance of the people here. The Alliance, certainly, could be uplifted, and if the xeno races must be preserved then they could at least be vetted for their attitude towards humanity and punished or… rewarded accordingly. It was a shame, he mused, that the Batarian species had already been virtually destroyed. Their swift and total annihilation would have been an agreeable first step into this galaxy.

He thought back to those all-too-recent days. The humans of the Systems Alliance, though initially confused and terrified at the Crusade Fleet's arrival had in any case displayed the good sense to accept such help as was offered regardless of the source. Many had volunteered themselves to act as liaisons and thousands of translation cogitators had been supplied and issued to the Imperial forces, subject of course to emergency approval by the Archmagos Seniorus.

Kalman glanced at the unassuming grey box affixed to his left wrist. About the size of a matchbox, it had a quiet but potent machine-spirit that somehow rendered all languages and dialects into intelligible Low Gothic without the need for mankind's sacred tongue to actually be defiled by xenos. High Gothic did not translate, he had noticed, but he suspected that had been a security consideration. No need to tell them everything, after all.

There had still been some interesting cultural misunderstandings. He had witnessed a foolish and arrogant xeno mercenary of the Krogan species actually attempt to headbutt a space marine on the Citadel, and the Astartes had hurled the alien through a wall before anyone could intervene. The body had been quietly recovered and no one had said anything further, though certainly nobody had tried that a second time.

Kalman paused to survey his surroundings, looking around again at the xeno cityscape. He had to admit, it was an attractive enough city, or had been. So unlike the worlds of the Imperium, but not dissimilar from picts he'd seen of occupied Terra. Was that down to alien influence or was it simply a primitive predecessor to STC architecture?

He over to where the reassuringly blocky, robust, Imperial forms of Leman Russ tanks were lining up at a staging area. The crews had disembarked to stretch their legs, check the hulls, and share stories of the engagement. Beyond them the horizon burned, the sky already lit by the glow of a city on fire. Occasional streams if fire from strafing aircraft twinkled in the distance as the shape of a Warlord titan crossed a distant gap between buildings.

He wasn't the only one appreciating the view. One black-clad tanky was sitting on his turret and taking the opportunity of a few minutes' downtime to take a few holopicts of the burning horizon. Kalman wondered what the man would do with them. Sell them to some shipbound Naval rating the next time they made shift, perhaps?

Kalman smiled properly for the first time in half an hour. Say what you like about life in the Guard but it definitely took you to some interesting places, and he'd always been a curious soul. He'd collected rocks from every planet he visited, once, but had to stop after an expedition to a world tainted by the Archenemy. Still had the collection somewhere.

No matter. He turned back to the command tank, exchanging a friendly wave with the officer by the rear hatch.

Time to see where he was headed to next.

* * *

I apologise for the delay in updating. Real life has, as always, made its own demands and I've struggled to find time to sit down and write. I also spend half my writing time shuffling bits and pieces of the story about, further increasing the time it takes me to make any headway.

Thanks for the comments / criticism / advice. All suggestions gratefully considered.

A word on tech disparity: 40K is so far beyond ME that it's not even funny. Despite the schizophrenic approach to technology frequently displayed, the very existence of things like las weapons, space marines, enormous warships and commonly available cybernetics point to a degree of scientific mastery that's borderline inconceivable. I don't believe that the AdMech are mindless drones perpetuating the same old crap over and over again, either - creation of the materials at the very least implies more than an IKEA furniture level of knowledge.

This is also why the Crusade is an order of magnitude or two smaller than the usual size. How do you get armies and spacecraft from one end of space and time to the other? I bet it'd be bloody difficult, so no reason to send any more than you absolutely need. Besides, a ship that can smash a hole in a planetary crust will not need fifty of its mates to take out a reaper or two.

I'm going to be incorporating various other cultural elements of the Imperium, but I'm wary of overextending myself. I've seen a lot of stuff on this site try to beat War and Peace for cast size, and I've no desire to replicate that soap opera. I'll try to get any requests in if I can.

I'm only sticking to one Chapter of Astartes though. I can't think of a justification to bring a lot of them on what might end up as a one-way trip...

Right, well, hope you enjoyed it. Don't be too hard on the most recent addition to the cast - somewhat bigoted, as you'd expect, but not all that narrow minded. He's just had his view of the universe shattered fairly recently, and besides that he hasn't got a clue how to talk to aliens.


End file.
